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Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress

I want to thank the members of the Political Union for inviting me to the University of Chicago. Indeed, it is a great honor to be recognized with the Phoenix of Freedom Award, and to join the esteemed group of scholars and activists who have come here before me to receive this prize.

In talking with you today I want to stress that we, as an international community, face troubling times. But also, I want to tell you that these are times that present tremendous possibility for progress — progress that will be realized if our public officials embrace their moral obligations and adopt a human agenda for leadership.

I must begin with bad news, because the political and economic landscape that we must survey is bleak. The existential situation that global citizens face is increasingly characterized by fear and uncertainty. Undoubtedly, you are all aware that we are in the midst of a global financial crisis. But the nature and consequence of this crisis, and its implications for world leadership, deserve careful reexamination.

Critics of globalization have long pointed to its bitter-sweet effects. While advances in communications and the weakening of restraints on capital have allowed a few individuals to gain enormous fortunes, these changes have done little to help the one point three billion people in our world who live on incomes of less than one dollar a day. Indeed, while pundits and politicians have praised the policies of economic neoliberalism, critical thinkers have called attention to the one billion people who have no access to clean water and have a life expectancy of only forty years. Critics have rightly claimed that the current process of globalization has only worsened global inequalities. Truly, each of us must face the monstrous inhumanity of a system that allows individual currency speculators to hold as much wealth as some small and impoverished nations. How many of you realize that the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the poorest forty-eight countries? These unprecedented levels of inequality are not only unjust, they are unsustainable. For we know that when poverty and inequality remain at such insidious levels, the eruption of armed conflict is inevitable.

While in past years dissenting viewpoints on globalization have been muted, today things have changed. Now we can watch even the high priests of the unregulated market coming down from their pulpits. Rather than sanctifying the capricious benevolence of the invisible hand, many are falling to their knees and hoping that total collapse will be averted. Jeffrey Sachs, a Harvard economist who supervised the program of "shock therapy" for Russia and much of Eastern Europe, now tells us that the "dream of quick economic liberalization lies in ruins." But what is not stressed in the talk of Wall Street analysts, who seem preoccupied with the profitability of their investment houses, is the true human dimension of this crisis. Imagine if half of the people you know, people earning a modest but adequate living, were suddenly thrown into desperate poverty. This is the situation that our brothers and sisters in Indonesia are now confronting as one hundred million people are made to feel the crushing blow of financial panic. The economies of Thailand and South Korea have shrunk by forty-five percent in the past two years; indeed the currency of South Korea lost half of its value in the past year, witnessing substantial declines in a matter of days. And as the shock waves from these devaluations extend through society it is the most vulnerable and economically insecure populations who often bear the miserable brunt of the impact. These people do not need a market observer to tell them of the shortcomings of an economic system based on greed and speculation, rather than on human need.

Moreover, compassionate people can only shudder when they consider the combined horrors of military insecurity and human desperation in Russia. Everyday we receive word that the safeguards protecting the country's twenty-two thousand nuclear weapons are growing less secure. Even before the turmoil of the past few months, life expectancy for males declined from a pre-reform sixty-five point six years to fifty-seven years today, a decline unheard of in times without war or massive natural disaster. And as winter begins, there are indications that millions of people may die, lacking food to strengthen their bodies and fuel to warm their homes, unless the international community undertakes a massive humanitarian intervention, and not merely a bail-out for wealthy investors.

For most people, the news from throughout the world — news of poverty, injustice, and insecurity — seems impossibly overwhelming. There appears to be no way for normal people to engage these problems, to address daunting evils or to change the systems that govern our lives. Too often, shutting ourselves off from the problems of fellow citizens and hoping that we are not personally affected by global hardships seems to be the only viable response. Today, I tell you that it is the job of local, regional, and world leaders to address this despair — to enter into their communities and show how we might respond differently; to offer a vision for moral progress and give reason to hope for social change.

History teaches us that times of crisis can easily give rise to power-worship and authoritarianism. Hateful personalities gain fame by playing to the fears of desperate and frustrated people. Rather than acknowledging their responsibilities towards others, they denounce immigrants and demonize scapegoats. Truly, the strength of fascist movements in France, Germany, and Russia, the scenes of racial violence in the Southern U.S., the prevalence of homophobia, and the exclusionary propositions passed in California show that this demagoguery is a danger that cannot be ignored.

But I am perhaps even more troubled by another type of irresponsible leadership. I am disappointed that so many leaders have worked to defend the privilege of the richest twenty percent of the world's population, even though we see this group consume eighty-six percent of the world's goods and services. I am disappointed by leaders who are quick to practice deference to the wealthy, even though we hear poor and working people cry out for genuine representation. Indeed, many who have talked continuously about presidential misconduct have been shockingly silent on these, the true moral issues of the day.

Too many elected officials and civic leaders too often have lacked the courage to protest the dramatic inequalities that exist at home and abroad. Too many, too often have shown themselves willing to sell democracy to the highest bidder, rejecting limits on the amounts that powerful interests might invest in political campaigns. Too many, too often have quietly expanded the rights of wealthy investors to make profits without regard to the human consequences or environmental impact of their acts. Yes, and too many leaders too often conspire to keep military spending at Cold War levels, failing to consider how these funds could be used in a more humane or productive fashion. How many of you know that U.S. military spending, in real terms, is the same now as it was in 1980, when the Soviet threat loomed large in the rhetoric of the State Department? In fact, the recently approved budget includes the largest peacetime increase in military spending since Ronald Reagan was President in 1985.

Sadly, these same officials that I have described greatly underestimate the impact that suffering in the inner-cities and tragic poverty in the wider world have on the democratic consciousness, disheartening all those who dream of a more just human society. Chicago is frequently cited as an example of a place where the stark inequalities of global capitalism are clearly visible. Thus, those here may have little trouble relating to the words of Robert Kennedy, who told us that while each of us may not be poor, "poverty affects all of us. . . The facts of poverty and injustice penetrate to every corner, every suburb, and every farm in the nation. . . Our ideal of America is a nation in which justice is done; and therefore, the continued existence of injustice — of unnecessary, inexcusable poverty in this most favored of nations — this knowledge erodes our ideal of America, our basic sense of who and what we are. It is, in the deepest sense of the word, demoralizing — to all of us."

Even as Kennedy addresses the reality of disappointment, and even as he demands our indignation, his courageous words give hope that ideals of democracy and equality might be extended through the global community. What is more, his words suggest a different type of leadership. They show us that true leaders are people who do not avoid hard problems, but instead insist that we grapple with them. Indeed, our times demand people who can fully appreciate the popular despondency over global difficulties, but still maintain a contagious belief in the fact that things can change — despair can change into hope, inward retreat can change into self-giving activism, and dehabilitating cynicism can change into life-affirming compassion. The times demand people who understand the distressing extent of injustice, but who respond by building movements that allow each person to help combat these evils.

Yes, history has shown that crisis can lead to hateful or self-interested leadership. But times of crisis can also be moments of progress and enlightenment, times when solidarity and justice are affirmed, and when people come together to face common adversity. Indeed, the good news is that while the current process of globalization has been marked by periodic crisis and persistent inequality, our international community has the opportunity to change this. Today we might still change our collective priorities and embrace our human obligations. We might still remake the significance of globalization, so that this term will refer not to an era of unregulated greed, but to a time of equality and universal respect for human rights. For this reason I want to discuss with you a new agenda for leadership — a human agenda for leadership — that will embrace this very task.

In our age, the Cold War has ended. Its oversimplified dichotomies are now obsolete -- appeals to a totalizing ideology (be it called "Democracy" or "Communism") should never again serve to justify dictatorship or oppression. What is more, globalization offers unique potentials for human unity. Thinking globally, we are able to draw from the best of the world's ethical and religious insights — to emerge with a thorough-going defense of the importance of human rights, the sacredness of the Earth's ecosystems, and the dignity of meaningful work. A human agenda for leadership recognizes the opportunity that this globalization brings; it draws strength and inspiration from the ethical victories of the day. For while the last decade had witnessed distressing levels of poverty, militarism, and consumption, it has also provided us with some exemplary scenes of human integrity — we have seen women rally for their rights in Beijing; we have seen a new era of peace come to Central America; and we have seen Nelson Mandela lead the South African people away from the horror of apartheid, and toward the righteous path of reconciliation. Rather than allowing Globalization to be defined by rampant speculation and persistent inequality, a human agenda insists that these victories, and the moral victories yet to come, must characterize our current era.

Moreover, leading with ethical vision means engaging history, understanding past mistakes and advances, and gathering wisdom from those humanists who have come before us. We still can learn much from the sages of ancient Greece. From Plato, we know well of the relentless mission of Socrates, who, he said, goes "about doing nothing but persuading you, young and old, not to care for...money...so much as you care for the excellence of soul." Indeed, many caught up in the day's insatiable drive for accumulation could benefit from Socrates' insistence that "virtue does not come from money." And even as he is sentenced to death, Socrates provides an important lesson in leadership. He tells his judges: "It is true I have been convicted for a lack; not a lack of words, but lack of bold shamelessness — an unwillingness to say the things you would find it pleasant to hear." How many of our leaders have the courage of Socrates, to tell people not the things they want to hear, but the truths that they need to know? How many will not speak mere pleasantries to powerful interests, but instead insist that contemporary evils of inequality and deprivation be immediately eradicated?

Two millennia after we received the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, the precepts of the Buddha, and the wisdom of the Popol Vuh, the world witnessed revolts in France and the United States which would reinvigorate hopes for moral progress. We regularly talk of the American revolution and the establishment of democracy as if it were a finished task, a process completed two hundred years ago. But Thomas Paine, a leading democratic thinker of this revolution, spoke truly when he said that "no man or country can really be free unless all men and all countries are free." The struggle for true democracy and equality continued in the United States and in other nations, just as it continues now. Those who would advocate for a humanistic revolution today look to Zapata's demand for simple justice, and to Helen Keller's resolute moral decency. We learn from Gandhi's struggle against colonialism, from Martin Luther King's movement for civil rights, and from Rigoberta Menchu's efforts to instill respect for indigenous traditions.

Indeed, even our world in crisis can provide lessons for a human agenda. Take, for example, the powerful allegory offered by this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature, Portuguese writer José Saramago. One of Saramago's most recent novels, entitled "Blindness," describes a society that withers in the face of a moral and medical crisis. In this story, masses of people lose their ability to see, but even more lose sight of their human obligations. The result is a civilization in ruins. Saramago explains his eloquent moral: "This blindness isn't a real blindness, it's a blindness of rationality... We are rational beings but we don't behave rationally. If we did, there would be no starvation in the world."

Before his death earlier this year, my good friend Mahbub ul Haq, a pioneer in the field of human development, challenged us all with some provocative questions. He asked: "Have we lost our intellectual courage? Have we lost the motivation to dream, to recreate, to innovate, to challenge, to dare?" Mabub told us that, "new ideas often sail against the prevailing winds. They dare raise questions, which look foolish at first sight." And he asked, "where are all these new ideas wandering in the search of leadership?"

Great writers and wise elders must provoke the moral ambitions of a current generation of young people. But, in a very important way, the challenge is mutual. Leaders who look to students and young workers will find a wellspring of hope and vitality. These young people have never believed in "the end of history," the idea that current social and economic systems will extend into a homogenous future. Instead, they struggle to create a new ethics for the era of globalization. In France students have taken to the streets decrying the erosion of social services, and as tensions have escalated, student leaders have insisted on the path of nonviolence. In Brazil, young workers have protested historic inequalities in the countryside, as well as hardships in the cities. And in Russia, many forward-looking young people bring a unique voice to mass rallies, insisting that neither ignoring human needs with neoliberal reforms nor returning to political authoritarianism can be real options for progress.

But by all accounts, the students of Indonesia have been among the most impressive. During the past year, they have generated massive public support with their simple refusal to comply with the demands of a tyrannical regime, and this refusal effectively led to the removal of Suharto, one of the world's longest standing and most corrupt dictators. With their courage and audacity these young people tell us that there is no such thing as an excess of democracy or dignity. The students and working people in the streets tell the world that they were through with military rule and sweatshop labor; that they have had enough with censored speech and imprisoned dissidents. The only restriction they impose on human creativity is the one insisting that there will be no such restrictions. Indeed, in Indonesia they hold signs that say "banning is banned!"

As we think about the task of leadership today, the overwhelming message is that we must alter the dominant values encouraging selfishness, military build-up, and a love of money; we must instead focus on our most noble aspirations. Advancing a human agenda means viewing global systems from the perspective of society's least fortunate populations: the culturally subjugated and the economically dispossessed. If we truly believe in democracy, we will reject condescending or trickle-down solutions to world problems, and instead highlight movements that allow ignored and depreciated populations to become agents of change. We will affirm some of the ethical maxims that gave rise to great and virtuous communities, but that have been too quickly overlooked in recent times: that all people have a right to work for a living wage, as well as to participate in the political and economic decisions that affect their communities. That all have a responsibility to think sustainably, to live in harmony with the natural environment. And that all people, not only those born in the most privileged families and neighborhoods, should have equal opportunity to access educational, cultural, and financial resources.

To say that a fundamental change in priorities is necessary, however, is not to avoid concrete policy proposals. Rather, by putting our values up front, we are able to turn to the problems of the day with new vitality and insight. Indeed, to do differently would be suspect. No less a leader than Mahatma Gandhi told us a half century ago that "politics without principles" and "commerce without morality" are among the seven social sins — sins to be avoided most of all by business and community leaders. Therefore, we must allow our public policy to grow out of our ethical conviction.

In past weeks there has been much talk about reforming the International Monetary Fund. Indeed, we should be asking hard questions about this and other instruments of global financial control. But unlike many other critics, I tell you that neither facile protectionism nor unregulated globalization is a viable option. We cannot continue the type of restrictive nationalism that has closed off the developing world from the prosperity enjoyed by the most wealthy countries, nor can we continue to allow the unchecked flow of speculative capital to wreak havoc upon vulnerable economies. Instead we must support a moral plan for global development which puts human needs over the drive for profit. In reforming the IMF we must ask fundamental questions about how we can make financial institutions subject to democratic review and popular will — how we can free these powerful bodies from the control of an elite few.

Furthermore, we must redefine the objectives of these institutions. Our financial organizations should work to forever ban child labor and to oversee a program of humane debt forgiveness. The total value of all loans to troubled debtors in Sub-Saharan Africa is equivalent to one percent of the GDP of the OECD countries. It is unconscionable that lender nations continue to extract payments from countries whose populations are literally starving to death. "Debt for nature" swaps have recognized that environmental destruction is a global problem; these programs forgive indebted nations in return for conservation programs that benefit the entire human community. Likewise, we must recognize that malnutrition and disease are human problems, and allow countries to make investments in health rather than perpetual debt payments.

Debt forgiveness should be part of a vastly expanded program of humanitarian support. When asked to name the largest element in the federal budget, fifty percent of all Americans choose aid to foreign countries. In fact, funds available for such assistance are negligible. The U.S. spends less than point one percent of its GNP on foreign aid, only one eighth of what many Nordic countries give. Increased support, free from the crass and manipulative politicking of cold war era appropriations, could reinvigorate civil society in the developing world, strengthening the movements that will ultimately be the source of social change — groups advocating women's equality and workers' rights, child protection and environmental conservation, public health and human rights.

Disease control is another crucial area that should be addressed by world leaders. It is now estimated that by the year 2000, more than forty million people with be living with the HIV virus. Each day there are sixteen thousand new infections that will lead to AIDS, and ninety percent of these are in the developing world. Indeed, up to twenty-five percent of the population of Zimbabwe may already be infected. At the same time, preventable illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis continue to kill millions in developing countries. Programs which aim to cure crippling diseases, new and old, should be a centerpiece of foreign policy for developed nations.

Restructuring financial policy and reinvigorating humanitarian aid are two necessary steps in an overarching effort to change the moral and political focus of the international community. But without a doubt, military spending represents the single most significant perversion of worldwide priorities known today. The $780 billion dollars spent on weapons and soldiers in 1997 constitutes a global tragedy. If we channeled just five percent of that figure over the next ten years into anti-poverty programs, all of the world's population would enjoy basic social services. Another five percent, or forty billion dollars, over ten years would provide all people on this planet with an income above the poverty line for their country.

The sale of arms is big business. As a whole, military spending in industrialized nations is down from its Cold War peak. But weapons contractors in these countries have continued to produce billions of dollars worth of armaments, and in fact have increased their weapons sales abroad. Their new clients are the impoverished countries of the developing world, places where the majority of contemporary conflicts take place. Truly, the United States provides the most blatant example of moral irresponsibility in its arms export policy. Currently, the U.S. is responsible for 44 percent of all weapons sales in the world. And, in the past four years, 85 percent of U.S. arms sales to the developing world have gone to non-democratic governments.

At the end of 1997, weapons manufactured in the United States were being used in thirty nine of the world's forty-two ethnic and territorial conflicts. It is unconscionable for a country that believes in democracy and justice to continue allowing arms merchants to reap profits stained in blood. But ironically, vast amounts of taxpayer money goes to support this immoral trade. In 1995 the arms industry received seven point six billion dollars in federal subsidies — this amounts to a huge welfare payment to wealthy profiteers. At the same time, we know that only six billion dollars a year would be enough to ensure basic education for everyone in the world.

In India and Pakistan, in Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa, in the former Yugoslavia and many other nations, bloated military budgets have led to profound poverty and human suffering. Unfortunately, half of the world's governments dedicate more resources to defense than to health programs. Such distortions in national budgets contribute to poverty and retard human development. War, and the preparation for war, is one of the greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence, and poverty.

For this reason, I have called together my fellow Nobel Peace Laureates to advocate for an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, a comprehensive, international effort to regulate and monitor arms transfers. This Code of Conduct would prevent undemocratic governments from building sophisticated arsenals. Governments which systematically abuse internationally recognized human rights through practices such as torture or arbitrary executions would not receive military training. Countries who commit genocide would not be able to buy munitions. Governments engaged in armed aggression against other countries or peoples could not buy missiles. States that support terrorism would be prevented from acquiring weapons. In addition, all nations would be required to report their arms purchases to the United Nations.

The effort to responsibly regulate arms transfers has made substantial progress. This year, the European Union passed a first code of conduct, and advocates continue to press for genuine code legislation in the United States. In addition to furthering these efforts, the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the Commission of Nobel Peace Laureates have worked to see that a unified Code of Conduct is adopted internationally, and to close loopholes that might prevent different regional codes from living up to high moral standards.

The International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers would undeniably promote global security and protect human rights. But I want to stress that the Code is not an end in itself. Instead it is an important step in changing militaristic values. It is a determined move towards reversing the focus of a global society in which there are currently seventy-five guns for every doctor. And it is a fundamental part of the larger struggle to end poverty and inequality.

My friends, I have told you that a human agenda for leadership will be both a matter of policy, and a matter of principle. But in conclusion, I must also stress any shift in our communal priorities must also be a personal, existential matter. Each of you must reconsider the privileges you enjoy as citizens in a wealthy country and as beneficiaries of this fine college. And you must embrace the responsibility that comes with this privilege. The point is not to feel guilty about the gifts you have received, but to feel always committed to the struggle to guarantee that all people may live such dignified lives. Do not be overwhelmed by the problems we face. Instead, be determined to make your mark against poverty and inequality. For it is this determination that builds hope. And it is hope that allows people to join together in the movements that change the world.

My friends, I tell you that today there is no technological barrier to restrict our creativity. There is no lack of access to information that will hinder our knowledge. And there is no national border strong enough to contain our solidarity.

Now, it is only a lack of will that stops great moral advances from becoming reality. Only a shortage of honesty and ethical vision that limits our compassion. And only our lust for material accumulation that prevents us from forever abolishing war and poverty.

The bad news of our world today is that we face a profound crisis. But the good news radiates from the faces in this audience, from the students coming together in the streets throughout the world, indeed, from all of the movements organizing for progress. The good news is that we can remake globalization. We can create a program of just and sustainable development. We can be more humane.

In the past, entire societies reorganized themselves in times of war; each person was called on to contribute to the war effort. This action was justified by demands for national security. To all of the young people here today, and to all of those still young enough to stand in hope and indignation, I say that we now need the same levels of mobilization and solidarity to ensure human security. Unlike many previous generations, you will not be sent onto some ethically dubious battlefield with orders to kill. Yours is a new history. You are called into moral combat against greed and corruption, poverty and injustice. Your orders, my friends, are to give life.

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